1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combined opener and temporary stopper for capped bottles, such as bottles for beer, juice, carbonated beverages, etc. Such bottles have caps which are held onto the bottle top either by threads which mate with threads on the bottle, or by sealing serrations which crimp the cap around a rim at the bottle's mouth.
2. Description of Prior Art
Known in the art (U.S. Pat. No. 758,235 to C. Cady, Apr. 26, 1904) is a combined opener and stopper (temporary sealer or closure) for bottles with crimp-on caps. The Cady opener and sealer comprises a metal plate having converging side edges which are bent downward and inwardly, a sealing pad made of a resilient material, such as rubber, attached to the inner surface of said plate between the bent edges, and an opening on the wider end of the plate.
The Cady device was used to seal open bottles by sliding the converging edges across the bottle's rim until the sealing pad was pressed and held onto the open mouth of the bottle. The opening in the Cady device was used to remove crimped-on bottle caps as follows: The rear edge of the opening was hooked under the bottom edge of the cap while the front edge of the opening rested on the top of the cap. Then the device was rotated up to pry off the cap.
Such a device was successfully used for many years until a new form of bottle cap appeared on the market, i.e., the threaded bottle cap. The threaded cap in use nowadays comes in two different types, short and tall. The short type, usually is used on beer bottles, has an incomplete or one full turn of thread on the inner surface of the cap with relatively coarse serrations (knurling) on its outside for better grasp and prevention of slippage during unscrewing. The tall type has a greater height and several complete turns of thread and serrations on its upper outside surface. Although both types of threaded caps are designed for removal by simple manual grasping and unscrewing, in practice removal requires substantial force. It is not unusual to see waiters in restaurants and cafes using conventional openers for removing short-height threaded caps from the bottles in the old pry-off fashion. However when this is done, the glass threads sometimes fracture, causing glass debris to fall into the beverage.
Another drawback of threaded bottles is that many conventional openers and stoppers cannot be used for temporarily closing and stoppering bottles because the threads interfere with the stopper. Also threaded caps of the tall type do not have lips on their lower end and fit tightly to the surface of the bottle neck and thus can't be opened with conventional openers.